Opportunity makes us known to others, but more to ourselves.

A man is perhaps ungrateful, but often less chargeable with ingratitude than his benefactor is.

True bravery means doing alone that which one could do if all the world were by.

All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.

Commonplace minds usually condemn what is beyond the reach of their understanding.

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.

Most men, like plants, possess hidden qualities which chance discovers.